All posts tagged: Meaning

How AI Is Influencing Language and Meaning

How AI Is Influencing Language and Meaning

Published by Jenni Sidey

AI-speak is affecting emotional reactions, stimulating societal shifts and triggering cultural changes. The emerging AI language is a dynamic system in which technical, innovative, emotional, and cultural communication features converge. This evolution of language is altering the meaning and use of many words and creating neologisms and new word formations that shape our communications. Over the past few decades, the tech world has brought many new words and concepts to the language: Crowdsourcing: obtaining contributions from a large group, often via AI online platforms. Google (as a verb): the use of an online search engine as a basis for looking up information on the World Wide Web. Troll: an individual who posts inflammatory, rude, and obnoxious comments online. Bot: a software application that runs automated tasks. Social bots, for example, are human simulations comprised of sets of algorithms that take on repetitive communication tasks. Swarm: a group of controlled or uncontrolled agents. In AI-speak, a swarm of drones is also an example of a swarm of bots. Hashtag: a word or phrase preceded by the …

how ‘algorithm’ changed its meaning

how ‘algorithm’ changed its meaning

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Algorithms are central to modern mathematics and computer science. They are explicit procedures valued for their clarity, efficiency and beauty. Beyond these fields, however, the word “algorithm” is most likely to evoke social media feeds, targeted advertising or a combination of the two of the two. Through algorithms, mathematics has become culturally visible as the force behind opaque processes – with unsettling consequences. Public familiarity with algorithms has grown much faster than familiarity with the mathematical ideas they embody. The changing use of the word algorithm reflects this enhanced visibility. In fact, the meaning of this word has changed dramatically over time, and has always varied between specialist and general use. With the emergence of AI, which is nothing more than a collection of algorithms, this discrepancy has a genuine effect on societal discourse. People sometimes speak of algorithms as they might speak about the weather. Algorithms are simply there, surrounding us, producing broadly similar consequences for everyone while remaining outside individual control. In this sense, algorithms are ambient and impersonal. Yet people also speak …

The Real Meaning of Norman Rockwell’s America

The Real Meaning of Norman Rockwell’s America

Published by Sam Flores

In 1976, as the country commemorated its bicentennial, an aging Norman Rockwell, then at the tail end of his career as America’s preeminent illustrator, painted his last magazine cover, Liberty Bell (Celebration). It was a tender—and notably low-key—tribute to national unity that doubled as a capstone for his body of work. For a decades-long stretch in the mid-20th century, the illustrator’s memorable images of smiling families and gentle, small-town interactions had filled the pages of national magazines, serving up a portrait of American life that was upbeat, idealistic, and reassuring. It’s a vision that has felt far away amid this year’s celebrations, once again, of the nation’s birthday. But the Rockwellian vision of America has felt distant for a long while. That distance is why we have songs such as Lana Del Rey’s “Norman Fucking Rockwell.” It’s why the phrase like a Rockwell painting is often deployed, not simply as a descriptive but as an implicit critique of naive civic optimism. And it’s why Rockwell has served as enduring grist for artists who, although they …

The Meaning of the Lindsay Clancy Mistrial

The Meaning of the Lindsay Clancy Mistrial

Published by Daniella Wilson

During the five weeks of her murder trial, Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of murdering her three young children in 2023, spoke barely a word. She has been on display for the entirety of her livestreamed trial, sitting in her wheelchair beside her lawyer at the defense table. At one point, when the prosecution walked the jury through the children’s autopsy reports, she hunched over, racked with sobs, crying out, “I can’t do this!” But mostly, Clancy has remained silent and wide-eyed, her gaze wandering around the courtroom as though searching for something. The judge in the case has just declared a mistrial because the jury has been unable to reach a unanimous verdict. But the viewing public, in the absence of Clancy’s own explanation of her experiences leading up to and after the killings, has projected its own ideas onto the case and rendered its own verdict. Some people have interpreted Clancy’s trial as a referendum on women’s postpartum mental health. Others have developed elaborate conspiracy theories maintaining that Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick, is …

Life, Liberty, and the Search for Meaning

Life, Liberty, and the Search for Meaning

Published by Jenni Sidey

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Most Americans are familiar with these words in the introduction to the 1776 Declaration of Independence. The full phrase is: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The concept of happiness has evolved significantly since this phrase was first introduced. Now we often associate the thought of happiness with living “the good life,” a concept hijacked by advertisers and portrayed as a life in which we seek pleasure, relaxation, and material goods. In effect, our postmodern society has told us that we can achieve happiness through consumption. But more choices and personal freedom have led to higher expectations, which have led to never being satisfied with what we have! We think we want more, but when we get it, it is not enough. “Enough” becomes a moving target. And we spend so much time working to pay for things we …

Turning to AI for Meaning and Transcendence

Turning to AI for Meaning and Transcendence

Published by Jenni Sidey

Yesterday, the Harvard Business Review published an article about recent research on the top use cases of generative artificial intelligence in 2026. The number one way that people are using large language models this year and last year is for therapy and companionship. The implications of this are startling and disturbing. Many of us are finding it easier to turn to AI to meet our emotional needs. Given that the quality of our attachment to one another is one of the significant predictors of human flourishing, it is hard to overstate the potential devastating consequences of turning to an LLM rather than to another human being. As monumental as this trend is, it isn’t new, and there are others who are speaking to it with clarity and rigor, most notably the psychologist Zak Stein. Using AI for Astrology But there is a new use case in 2026 that I find equally disturbing, if also darkly humorous. People are using AI to generate astrological and tarot readings. Ostensibly, we consult AI because it is supposed to …

Massive sculpture at Bristol Harbour has a grim meaning

Massive sculpture at Bristol Harbour has a grim meaning

Published by Sam Flores

A giant inflatable model of the E-coli bacteria joined dozens of campaigners in Bristol protesting about the cleanliness of rivers and seas around the West Country today. The huge model, created by Bristol artist Luke Jerram, was installed at Baltic Wharf as crowds took to the water to call on the authorities to do more to prevent sewage pollution in the UK. It was part of nationwide protests across the country from Cornwall to Scotland. Surfers Against Sewage organised the Paddle-Out Protests, encouraging people to turn up on paddleboards, kayaks and canoes. Surfers Against Sewage’s Bristol spokesperson Anna Steele-Perkins said is was growing public anger over sewage dumping, environmental damage and rising water bills in Britain. “Profit always comes before people and nature. It’s inhumane and I’ve had enough,” she said. “Whether you’re a surfer, paddle-boarder, wild swimmer, or are simply sick of rising water bills, we gathered to demand an end to sewage being dumped into our precious waterways,” she added. Surfers Against Sewage’s research found that more than 1,200 people reported illness after …

Restoring Meaning To American Citizenship

Restoring Meaning To American Citizenship

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by John Velleco via Gun Owners of America, This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that could redefine one of the most fundamental questions in American law: Who is a citizen of the United States? Does birth on U.S. soil automatically confer citizenship, even when the parents owe allegiance to a foreign nation? Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation, along with several others, have filed a Friend of the Court brief urging the Court to take a fresh look at that question. At issue are two cases, State of Washington v. Trump and Barbara v. Trump, challenging President Trump’s 2025 Executive Order, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” What interest do Second Amendment rights organizations have in asking the Court to review a case that on its face deals with immigration and the practice of so-called birthright citizenship? The answer is simple and goes to the heart of who, precisely, constitutes a nation. A nation is defined by those who pledge loyalty to it, not …

Eid Mubarak meaning: How to wish someone a ‘Happy Eid’

Eid Mubarak meaning: How to wish someone a ‘Happy Eid’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Muslims globally are preparing for Eid al-Fitr, the festival concluding Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. The holiday is expected on either Thursday, March 19, or Friday, March 20, depending on the moon’s sighting. It is a time for communal prayer, family gatherings, feasting, and new clothes. During Ramadan, devout Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn until sunset, dedicating themselves to prayer, charity, and acts of kindness. open image in gallery Turkey Eid al-Fitr (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Eid al-Fitr, meaning “the festival of breaking the fast”, signifies the culmination of this month of spiritual reflection and renewal. Because Islam follows a lunar calendar, Ramadan and Eid rotate through the seasons, occurring approximately 11 days earlier each year. While the first day of Eid is anticipated to fall between the evening of March 19 and March 20, the precise date may differ slightly among countries and Muslim communities, depending on local moon sightings. open image in gallery Ramadan is a time of increased worship (AP) What are some …

How Einstein revolutionized the meaning of “where” and “when”

How Einstein revolutionized the meaning of “where” and “when”

Published by Jenni Sidey

Here on Earth, it seems easy and straight forward to know “where” anything is, or to know “when” an event either occurred or will occur. After all, we’ve mapped out the entire surface of the Earth, and can define our location with three coordinates — latitude, longitude, and altitude/depth — no matter where in the world we are. Additionally, we’ve synchronized all methods of timekeeping here on Earth with atomic clocks, enabling people from all different locations on Earth to know both the “when” and “where” any event occurs, will occur, or has occurred. But this relies on an underlying assumption that most of us make without ever thinking twice about it: that you, from your location on Earth, are observing the same “here and now” as anyone else in any other location on Earth. Unfortunately, those ideas were proven to be incorrect more than a hundred years ago. We now recognize that even ideas like “when” and “where” are subject to the laws of Einstein’s relativity, and that in relativity, space and time are …